question about chinese characters (includes korean/japanese hanja/kanji too)
hello!
i wasn't really sure in which language should i put this question, so i left the one i'm learning, however, the question includes three languages - chinese, korean and japanese.

the thing i'm curious about is the chinese characters..how different are they in those three countries?
i know one difference is usage, obviously...and the same characters are read differently, as in pronunciation, right?
but when it comes to an actual meaning of a character? will it be the same or different? or maybe, only some of the characters have the same meanings and some may differ (depending on a country, that is)?

it would be nice, if someone could help.
maybe also include simple examples, but that's not optional.

Question

question about chinese characters (includes korean/japanese hanja/kanji too)
hello!
i wasn't really sure in which language should i put this question, so i left the one i'm learning, however, the question includes three languages - chinese, korean and japanese.

the thing i'm curious about is the chinese characters..how different are they in those three countries?
i know one difference is usage, obviously...and the same characters are read differently, as in pronunciation, right? 
but when it comes to an actual meaning of a character? will it be the same or different? or maybe, only some of the characters have the same meanings and some may differ (depending on a country, that is)?

it would be nice, if someone could help.
maybe also include simple examples, but that's not optional.

Answer

Meaning of chinese characters are totally same between three countries.
However few characters are different in writing by country by country.

For example:
Chinese and Japanese are writing 国 for mean of country 
but Korean's writing as 國.

Answer

Like dunhill998 said the meanings for characters are pretty much all the same & sometimes characters are simplified.

But where there seems to be more difference in usage is in how the characters combine to form words (usually a single character is not a word in itself but must combine with another character/other characters to make a word).

Answers · 3

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